


Broken

by facetofcathy



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: 10000-15000 words, Alternate Universe - No Spouse, Bisexual Character, Canada, Cliche Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-09
Updated: 2009-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:53:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story begins with both protagonists single, at the end of filming season 4, and heading into the summer hiatus/convention season.  Jared, Jensen and Misha tackle their convention experiences in their own unique ways, and they work well together.  On the way back from Europe, one second of inattention changes everything, and they all have to learn new ways to get by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Broken is my somewhat AU take on the [hurt/comfort trope](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hurt/Comfort). Of course being me, I broke all the rules of the trope and turned everything inside out. I like a lot of the tried and true aspects of fandom clichés and tropes, but I like colouring outside the lines too.

They'd wrapped the season, and Jared had gotten his house ready for sitting empty, which had mostly involved sitting in the yard with the phone pressed to his ear, while he'd worked through a couple of beers and lined up other people to do the work. It was all routine now. One more hiatus, one more season, and he'd be doing it for the last time.

After a very short breather, they'd hopped a plane to start a convention circuit that involved three continents in two months. Only this time, there were three of them travelling together, not two. Misha had asked Jared and Jensen what to expect. Jared had said it would be fun and horrible in about equal measure. Jensen had prophesied doom and despair for all concerned. Misha had looked intrigued by their conflicting opinions and said he'd just have to figure it out for himself.

He'd figured it out pretty damn quick, and he'd taken to it better than even Jared had. At first, he'd performed like a veteran, smiling and signing his name and saying nothing at all in a friendly way—not doing anything too outrageous. Even Jensen had started to relax a little. Once Misha'd learned the ins and outs of the panels and the autograph sessions and how to decipher just what their public relations people were actually saying, he'd started to relax too. Misha relaxed was a dangerous beast.

Somehow, this culminated in Jensen, deep into the whiskey and camped in the hotel corridor in Australia waiting for his room service food. Jared couldn't draw the line from Misha going a little off the script on stage to Jensen going a little too far with the scotch, but he knew it was there. It was possible his own collection of empties might be responsible for his geometrical impairment.

Jared and Misha hid behind the door to Jared's room, open the barest crack, and listened to Jensen express his earnest, sincere and heartfelt sorrow for ruining the vacation of a lifetime experiences of Mr. and Mrs. Shetterling in room 3206. Jensen apologized profusely to the management of the hotel for how loudly he'd been yelling about having to put up with, not one, but two co-stars who were differently brained. His exact words were slightly less polite.

The manager expressed some more deep displeasure, and Jensen added another layer of contrition to his tone in response. It was a masterful performance, the audience, in room 3206 across the hall, door also open a crack, were sure to be impressed.

Jensen's burger arrived just as the manager left, and he pushed into Jared's room and settled into a sullen tangle of knees and elbows in the middle of Jared's bed, beer balanced precariously between his ankles. The manager had confiscated the scotch.

"Guys, you should have told me it would be like this," Misha said from his sprawl on the floor.

Sometime in the middle of Act Two of the apology that deserved an Oscar, he'd slid down the wall, tears streaming down his face, his whole body shaking with laughter. Jared wasn't completely convinced Misha experienced reality in exactly the same way as the rest of humanity.

"You're both fucked in the head," Jensen said, as sullenly as he was sitting, and not for the first time, but Jared saw the glint in his eye that meant he was secretly enjoying himself.

They'd finished their third convention in England and had been shuttled to a London hotel for a day off before they were due to fly home. Jensen was trying to talk Jared out of a London pub crawl and insisting they stay in. Misha was locked in his own room, having told them he was going to take his real self to the Victoria and Albert early the next day, and they were emphatically not invited. Jared had pretended he'd thought Misha had been talking about a pub until Jensen had kicked him in the ass to get him to stop. He was still periodically brushing at the boot print on his jeans and lovingly recounting the beer he'd had the last time he'd been in London, and Jensen was going to cave any second and go along with whatever Jared wanted, just like he always did.

"Fine, you booze hound," Jensen said grumpily, "let's go get trashed on English beer. If we do it up right, we'll be spectacularly hungover and on our way to infamy by the time we're halfway home." He yanked open the door to the corridor and only flashed his smile when he thought Jared had turned too far to see.

They were more than spectacularly hungover on the plane. Jensen was huddled into a blanket and shivering, and Jared smiled weakly at the person closest to the bathroom and convinced him to switch seats. Before they landed, he signed thirteen shaky autographs for the flight attendant's daughter and each member of her dance class, by way of apology for the one time he hadn't quite made it in time.

Jensen regained consciousness enough to bitch him out through customs, security and baggage claim and on out into the California heat and haze.

"See if I want to share a fucking cab with you and your toxic emissions," Jensen said and towed his luggage around a crowd of tourists arguing over how many cabs they needed and who was going to pay for it all. Jared was just glad Misha had taken a different flight, or he'd probably be right in the middle of it, smiling and offering them hangover cures and describing the whole thing on Twitter. Jensen stepped aside to let their cab driver wrestle with a recalcitrant trunk latch, and a rusted-out Chevy took him out at the knees.

Jared had seen fake blood, knew its strange sweet taste too intimately, but the real, red flood, and it was a flood, pouring onto the concrete around Jensen's legs and dear sweet fucking god, his head, had Jared almost faint. He could feel his mouth working, and his ears were roaring, someone was screaming, and it wasn't him as it turned out. There were people everywhere, sirens blaring, police or security, someone in uniform, and his phone was in his hand, and he was damn well calling his mother, and anyone who had anything to say about that could fuck off.

His mother was saying something, over and over, and he clicked in finally, and started shouting at random people, "What hospital? What hospital? What hospital?" He'd give his right arm for Misha to be there with him. He'd give ten years of his life for his mother closer than the tinny voice in his ear.

His luggage, Jensen's luggage and his own self filled the cab, and the driver was praying or just apologizing or something, and Jared knew with some part of his mind it was Spanish and he was translating it in his head as the guy kept on, but it still didn't make sense. He proved he was the fucking definition of a Hollywood asshole by calling the network publicity department before he called Jensen's parents.

He didn't realize he had blood on his hands until he burst into the hospital emergency room. He couldn't remember ever getting close enough to touch Jensen. The smears of red got him some bored looks; his claims of friendship to Jensen got him nothing. He opened his mouth to claim domestic partner status, bluff his way in, but he closed his teeth on the words. He'd never had the nerve to try to take that step with Jensen to ever say anything about how he felt, and it seemed hideously wrong to do it now to strangers.

He sat in the waiting room with a pile of luggage and blood-stained hands and thought about Misha of all things, capering around and taking the piss. The British expression was meant for him, would have to be invented for him if it hadn't already, but there was something strangely serious and honest underneath his silliness, and all Jared had going for him was a willingness to make a fool of himself in public, and no courage at all in private.

A woman in a suit two cuts above her wage grade flashed a network ID and a nervous smile and insisted that Jared could not be present when the press caught wind of things. Jared listened and nodded and told her that if she couldn't find out if Jensen was even alive than she was of no use to him.

A man in an even better suit and the easy smile of a born liar showed up a while later and got him to surrender the bloody suitcases. Jared looked over the guy's left shoulder and saw Jensen's parents boil in the door, but they were gone before Jared could open his mouth, whisked away by hospital staff in candy-coloured clothes—saltwater taffy colours. He didn't think he'd been sitting there long enough for the Ackles to arrive, but he wasn't even sure anymore what day it was.

Jared looked up again at some later time, and his vision swam, and his head felt light enough to float away. Misha was in front of him, on his knees on the dirty floor, and he let Jared collapse against him, and he held him up and got him standing and then there was water and coffee, and the next thing he knew, he was in a hotel room near the airport, and his luggage was stacked beside the bed.

There was a sealed envelope on the bedside table, his name in Misha's bold script on the front. Inside was a list of instructions that was almost poetically simple. Jared picked up the pen and started checking them off. He'd managed the first two, was well into number three and had bumped number five a few places up and had already called his mother. He felt almost in charge of his own life by taking that bold decision.

He figured out the puking on the plane had probably been food poisoning, rather than just too much beer, about the time he woke up from a nap he hadn't intended to take and had to run to the bathroom. He ordered two quarts of orange juice and some soup from room service and called Misha before his mother this time. One of them, or perhaps both of them, had got Jensen's parents on the phone, and he had permission to get past the hospital front desk.

He knew he looked pale and glossed over with sickly sweat. His hands shook a little, so he shoved them in his pockets, acted well enough to keep from getting admitted and did get the gist from the doctors—right leg broken in three places, smashed kneecap, cracked arm bone, cracked left femur, minor head wound of no importance, concussion, shock, preexisting bacterial infection and dehydration. When they told him Jensen was already sedated for the air ambulance trip to Dallas, Jared looked at his watch and calculated his nap had covered most of a day.

Jared was prepared to insist, but Jensen's parents offered to let him see Jensen for a few minutes. He looked horrible, bruises over pale skin, and he was out cold and motionless, strapped into a gurney, ready to be moved. He still looked a hell of a lot better than he had lying on dirty pavement in a spreading pool of blood. Someone wearing taffy blue bustled into the room, and Jensen was wheeled out and away, leaving Jared standing alone in the room.

Jensen was up in the air, flying home for months of recuperation, and Jared was clutching a water bottle and sitting beside Misha while the network suits talked over their heads, and Kripke and Singer tried to act cool about the whole thing.

Jared was up in the air, flying to his own parents' home for a two-week stay before he'd started feeling halfway to normal again. They were going to start up filming again early, apparently rewriting the entire season meant starting even earlier rather than later as he'd been hoping for. Jared had been given dire warnings about long days; Misha had let his agent screw the network's nuts to the wall and now had a sweet deal as a regular character with a whole new salary. Jared hadn't heard the dreaded words re-cast in over a week.

Jensen's parents told him not to drive up to Dallas when he called. Jensen was still in the hospital and couldn't handle the excitement, they said. Jared considered ignoring them and driving up anyway, but he didn't need another fruitless vigil in a small plastic chair to convince him that he really wasn't anything of Jensen's beyond that guy Jensen used to work with.

*****

Jared flew back to Vancouver while it was still scorching summer in Texas and pleasantly warm and dry in BC. He sat in the same chair in the yard with the same phone pressed to his ear as he had in the spring, undoing all the security and cleaning and dog arrangements he'd made then. He was sipping at a beer, tossing a ball for his babies and checking his missed calls. Jensen's voice boomed out of the phone, "I'm going to hop all the way to Vancouver to kick your ass with my good leg, you moron. Why the hell didn't you come visit? Call me, jerk."

Jared's hand was shaking when he hit the dial button, but his voice was steady when he said, "You're a jerk."

"Asshole, fuck, Jared. Where were you? Fucking some cute young thing on a beach or some shit?"

"Home, reading a new script every 3.947 hours. Didn't want to intrude, man." Jared didn't know if Jensen's mother had told him he'd called, but if not, he didn't want to raise any shit.

"As if you could." Jensen sighed, and Jared could see the little head shake he made when he was brushing off something that bugged him. "3.947? You did the math?"

"Misha."

"Crazy fuck."

"Yeah," Jared said and didn't ask which of them he was referring to. "You sound better than I expected."

"What did you expect, just a couple of bones busted."

"Yeah or a handful anyway. Shit, you've seen the pictures?"

Jensen laughed in his ear. There had been a couple of people snapping photos with their phones, and one tourist with a high-quality camera had gotten an awesome colour close-up that showed the blood pool. It had made the cover of several tabloids and spread around the internet like wildfire. Nobody had bothered with the crazy tall guy with blood on his hands; no one had realized who they were until they were whisked away.

"I'm good—trussed up and staring down the barrel of a lot of physio. My past coming back to haunt me."

"Wish I could get away, see for myself. Not that I don't trust you not to lie, but—"

"I'm not," Jensen said, "or at least not much. I'm going to be fine, Jared."

Jared wanted to believe him, but the last time he'd seen him he was unconscious, and the time before that he was being hoisted into an ambulance and he'd looked dead. Jared wanted to be where Jensen was, wanted to look after him or some shit. "First weekend I have off," he said, and Jensen snorted in derision and said, "See ya at Christmas then."

"Yeah," Jared said, defeated and feeling more lost than he'd been since he'd left home at eighteen. He had expected this last season of the show to be all about him and Jensen, had even made a few resolutions to take a few steps forward with Jensen. "Look, I've got to go, the dog walker's at the door, and I need to set up a whole new schedule, and—you know how it goes."

Jensen let him go, and he sat and stared at the lawn, already getting torn up and rough looking. Fifteen minutes later the doorbell peeled for real—another courier with another revision. This time it was for the scenes he was supposed to shoot in the morning. He got a text from Misha, _2 wks in trench coat, am suing for change of clothes_.

Misha spent their first day on set describing the epic battles between his agent and the network. He really was threatening to sue for a wardrobe change. Jared listened with the half of his attention that Misha expected of him and tried to find some enthusiasm for playing Sam desperately looking for his big brother and desperately worrying that he'd become the vessel for the devil on Earth. The word hotel filtered into his consciousness, and he tuned back in. His brain wasn't a Tivo, though, so he asked Misha to back up a bit.

"I said, I need to find a different hotel. The one they put me in has the tiniest rooms outside of Japan."

"Stay with me," Jared said, imagining the empty room Jensen had already moved out of, and liking the idea of it full again.

"I don't want you getting confused before your morning coffee and have you start molesting me in the breakfast nook," he said with his characteristic smart ass grin, and Jared actually felt the blood draining out of his face.

"Well fuck me and call me a moron," Misha said in a voice of pure wonder. "You and him, you're not? Why the hell not?"

Because I'm a coward, Jared thought, or at least not as reckless as your average actor, as your average guy. He just shrugged, and Misha continued to stare at him until they were called back to the set.

He bullied Misha into his ride, made him pack up and check out, and had Jensen's old room occupied, if not by nightfall, then soon enough to give them a taste of sleep before morning. It turned out Misha spent breakfast letting his real self out to talk to his wife on the phone. Jared didn't feel compelled to give them any privacy, mainly because he didn't have the first clue what they were talking about.

"You ever worry about developing a split personality?" Jared asked in the car.

"Seems like the only sane way to deal with this gig," Misha said and then told the most vulgar joke Jared had ever heard.

The first time they worked a half-day on Saturday, they broke into the wardrobe trailer, stole the old ruined version of the trench coat from the previous season and had a ceremonial burning in the back yard. Misha intoned a solemn Eulogy in what he claimed was German, but Jared thought sounded like pig Latin. They were splitting a bottle of Canadian whiskey and Jared didn't care about much beyond getting the bottle back out of Misha's hands a reasonable portion of the time.

He was lying on the ground watching the clouds spin in circles and the sun dazzle through the empty bottle when his pocket started singing. He recognized the song as the extremely emo song he'd picked as Jensen's ring tone. He'd meant the gesture to seem ironic, but he was beginning to think it was just earnest instead. "Does that make me pathetic?" he asked, and when Jensen didn't answer, he swore and fumbled the phone out of his pocket and clicked the talk button.

"I don't know, he never calls, he never writes, I'm starting to think he just doesn't care."

"Who doesn't?" Jared said and squinted against the sun. He'd lost his bottle in the scramble for the phone.

"You, you dumb ass. Are you drunk at—what is it, 3 in the afternoon?"

"Yes," Jared said proudly.

"Finally got a half day?"

"I did, we did, and I'm now a cheap drunk courtesy of the CW."

"I remember booze. Vaguely." Jensen paused, and Jared waited for him to talk some more. His voice sounded nice.

"Your voice sounds nice," Jared said into the silence.

"Yours sounds drunk off its ass."

"I am safely on the nice soft grass, so my voice can't fall down."

"That makes sense inside your head, doesn't it?" Jensen sounded amused and like he'd be doing that thing where he tried to look exasperated but couldn't pull it off.

"Not really."

"You okay, Jared?"

"I'm supposed to ask you that, 'cause you're all broken. 'M not broken."

"I'm fine, Jared. If I don't kill my mother or hobble away to live in a cabin with no forwarding address by Christmas, you can see that for yourself."

"Ha!" Jared said triumphantly, although he was anything but. "Bet you one hundred actual green dollars that that does not occur."

"Seriously?"

"Yup, this is worse than the writer's strike even. Fuck, don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, dude. Hey, the internet says you've replaced me with Misha, just like the show did," Jensen said, laughing happily.

Jared liked having Jensen laughing happily in his ear. He actually caught himself before he actually said that, and then he caught his hand travelling to his cock, and he flushed and nearly dropped the phone. "You should know not to look at the internet, Jensen, it's all scary and shit."

"I'm a big boy, I can take it. So it's working out, him staying there?"

"Yeah, didn't want to be alone. He's off having phone sex with his wife or something, and I want his agent, man."

"Can I call you again, on Monday?"

"Course."

"No, I mean—I have to have therapy on my arm. They're all worried about my arm strength for when I'm able to move around a little more and—can I call you after it's done?

"Filming until about 6, schedule says, so likely more like 8."

"Okay, well I just wanted to warn you, it's supposed to be a bit rough. I might sound a little off."

"Call me, right after—don't care how you sound—want to know you're okay."

"Okay, will do."

"Sky's all blue," Jared said.

"You should get your drunk ass inside the house."

"Want to get on a plane, not my drunk self, my real self, get on a plane and fly through the blue."

"Inside, Jared."

Jensen stayed on the phone while he struggled up and inside the patio doors. He was afraid to let Jensen walk him any farther; he wanted Jensen to walk him to bed, but he didn't think that would end well, not as drunk as he was, so he said goodnight and hung up. He slept through dinner and woke up at midnight to cold leftovers and a hangover.

*****

Winter hiatus was short and bittersweet. Jared had time enough to fly home to be with his family, and he took the three days after to drive to Dallas, see Jensen and catch a flight back to L.A. from there. He'd agreed to hit a New Year's Eve party with his L.A. friends, so he had a day and a half total in Dallas.

He was worried about what he was going to find when he got there, and the drive was interminable because of it. He played the radio too loud, sang tunelessly to the sappiest country songs he could find and didn't stop until he hit the sprawling suburbs at the edge of the city.

The first time Jensen had called him after his physio, he was wrecked. When the torture had moved from his arm to his leg, it had gotten worse, and he'd suspected that Jensen had started waiting a little longer to call, letting the pain pills kick in a little harder. The calls had gotten shorter and Jensen hadn't been able to hold the thread of the conversation sometimes, no matter how light Jared had kept things.

Jared _had_ kept things light for the most part. He'd saved his complaints about his workload and the fatigue that was sapping what little enthusiasm he had left for the job for Misha. Misha would lift his head from the kitchen table and fix Jared with a bloodshot glare. "Someone, somewhere has mistaken me for a much younger man," he'd say, or something like it, and Jared would nod his agreement, because he'd been starting to feel that way too.

One particularly crazy day on set, Misha had thrown his phone at Jared's head and had said, "Here, talk about something sane," and Jared had spent fifteen minutes talking to Misha's wife about the proposed withdrawal from Iraq. He'd ordered her a dozen roses when he'd hung up. He'd thrown in a couple dozen for his mother, and then on a whim, Jensen's mother too.

He got lost twice looking for Jensen's house, flipped off the GPS and found an actual map in the glove box. He turned down the right street, one he'd managed to drive past twice, and pulled up in front of a house with an ominous number of cars in the driveway. He told himself to suck it up, and he walked up to the door and tried not to look like a stalker.

The house was full, cousins from out of town, Jensen's mother explained. Jared tried to make excuses and bail out; he had called, but maybe they'd forgotten, and—

"Get your giant ass in here, Jared," Jensen hollered from the living room.

A little girl who looked about ten admonished him to use his indoor voice, and someone, maybe the girl's mother added a few pointed remarks about his language.

Jared sidled past someone he'd never met and made it into the room and finally saw Jensen, awake and alive and conscious and holding court in a big leather recliner. His right leg was held immobile in a brace, bent at a slight angle, and he looked tired and a bit stressed like he'd get at network events or in crowds of strangers, but underneath that he looked pretty damn good.

"Jeez—er, you look like—you playing a zombie this season?" Jensen said.

"Hamster in a wheel," Jared said, and he plopped on the floor beside Jensen's chair. "Sorry for busting in on the party."

"Shut up. You're the only one in the room who isn't named Ackles, makes you the best thing I've seen all day," Jensen said. He'd leaned over to try to have some privacy, but Jared could see a lot of eyes on them.

"Yeah," Jared tried to smile, but the drive had worn him down, and sitting in a room full of people wasn't what he'd wanted. He couldn't really get a feel for how Jensen was doing, not when they had to watch their manners and do their buddy act.

"Seriously, man, you look like shit."

"My Momma agrees with you. Tried to feed me back to health, but what I really need is about two months of sitting on a beach. It'll be over soon enough, or not soon enough, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I've been watching, you're really bringing it, man. Misha too."

"Yeah?" Jared said and grinned happily. Jensen smiled back nearly as big and they got a little lost just looking pleased with themselves and each other.

"You staying for dinner, Jared?" Jensen's mother called from the doorway.

"Yes Ma'am," he said, and he heard her say something about how he looked like he could use a good meal.

The table was crowded, for all it seemed to stretch on forever, and Jared was having trouble figuring out where to put his legs. A never-ending stream of bowls of food passed him by, and it was no different from home, what looked like too much food that all disappeared soon enough. It was impossible to carry on any sort of real conversation, his non-Ackles status made him the object of a lot of scrutiny. Halfway through the meal, he could feel Jensen fidgeting beside him, lifting his bad leg and shifting around.

"You okay, dear?" his mother said with a sharp-eyed look that took in his hard grip on his water glass and his mostly untouched food.

Jensen nodded, made some placating noise, but Jared thought the grim set of his jaw was more discomfort at the attention than pain.

"My fault," Jared said and bunched up the linen tablecloth to get a look. "I'm not built to regular scale. My Momma always threatened to cut holes in the dinning room floor for more leg room."

Jensen snickered at him, and then hissed out a sigh as Jared carefully maneuvered his left knee under Jensen's so he could keep his leg up and away from any shuffling feet. Jensen's body was hot against his, and he had to curtail the urge to wrap his arms around him and hold on. It would certainly liven up the meal.

"You going to last until spring?" Jensen said under cover of the clamour for pie.

"Don't know, man. It's been a bit nuts."

"Things will settle down, the writers will have caught up and they aren't hustling for renewal. It'll ease up."

Jared gave him a skeptical look.

"I'll bet you fifty bucks, actual green dollars."

"Make it the cute pink one, it's worth more again," Jared said.

"Seriously?"

"Mm-hmm. Misha's agent is demanding his salary get paid in Canadian dollars. The network is resisting."

"That doesn't seem right," Jensen's uncle something or other said, from across the table. His face was set in a deep frown. "How can foreign money be worth more than American?"

Jared debated explaining it too him, but he was just too damn tired. He favoured the man with his best dumb actor grin and shrugged.

He wanted to kidnap Jensen and hustle him back to his hotel room for, at the very least, a private conversation, but the man was flagging fast. Jared let Jensen walk him to the door and considered ignoring Jensen's pride and simply carrying him upstairs, but he was actually worried _he_ wasn't up to it.

He slept in his Dallas hotel room for ten hours and barely made his flight out. When he finally got back to Vancouver, he had a collection of photos of himself sleeping through midnight on New Year's Eve taken by his friends, but he felt better than he had since the summer.

*****

The filming schedule did ease up, and Jared put a crisp new pink fifty-dollar bill in an envelope and mailed it to Jensen. Jensen sent back a text message claiming he really couldn't be bought that cheaply. Jared was embarrassed at the intensity of his reaction to a little off-colour teasing, and he couldn't help but think of the previous night. Jensen had called him after he was already in bed, and Jared had had to beg off talking after a few minutes for fear they were going to be engaging in one-sided phone sex if he didn't get off the phone. He was losing control of his reactions as if he hadn't had years of practice.

The slightly more sane schedule was nice, and he managed two trips to L.A. to actually talk to his agent in person and collect up some scripts he was never going to have time to read. Misha was managing a few more trips, and always came back looking smugly happily married and well fucked. The problem was that neither of them really cared anymore about the show, not enough to make up for living so far away from the people they wanted to be with.

"Great to see you," Misha said after he'd dumped his bags in his room. He slumped on the sofa across from Jared and scowled.

"I'm sensing a little less than complete honesty, man, and I'm hurt, I really am."

"No, really, Jared. I always used to say I wanted to live in a platonic relationship with a guy who's taller, younger and prettier than me."

"Well I really appreciate that, because you really are my dream man. Bitchy, cranky, crazy-ass whack-job and the most married person I've ever met."

"Fuck off, Jared."

"You too, Misha."

"Perhaps we should turn this not very suppressed rage on someone who actually deserves it?"

"Picture of Kripke and a dartboard?"

"I was thinking more the network offices and some Molotov cocktails, but that would just require another plane ride." Misha sighed dramatically.

"When I can't tell if you're kidding or not, you start to scare me a little."

"Only a little?" Misha favoured him with his best maniacal grin, and then slumped back and frowned. "I feel no motivation. I'm supposed to be a professional, and they've burned it out of me, I just don't fucking care about Castiel's myth arc or the rest of the whole fucking deal anymore. Fucking with people's heads on Twitter isn't even fun anymore."

"Yeah, well. I haven't given a shit for a long time. I was only in it for the hot guys anyway."

"Guy singular, dude. Who are you trying to fool?"

"Yeah," Jared sighed. "Jensen said what he'd seen of the show looked good, that we were good."

"We could get all self-centred and act our gorgeous asses off just to make ourselves look good."

"We could."

"Or to impress your boyfriend, because when he says something nice to you, you always cheer up."

"Fuck off, Misha."

The two of them spent the next day of filming trading exaggerated, mocking, therapy-speak pep talks before each take. They were driving the director mad; the rest of the crew started out trying not to laugh, and finished up trying not to roll their eyes, but at the end of the day they'd put some good stuff on film.

"I'm in it for my highlight reel," Misha said in the car on the way home.

"I'm in it for an Emmy, dude. If you're lucky, I'll remember your name just as they're dragging me off stage at the end of my speech."

"How many vacant-eyed women in ball gowns would it take to wrestle Jared Padalecki off a stage?"

"Some of those women are pretty built, dude; you'd know that if you could get your eyes off their tits."

"Oh, Christ, don't get all gayer than thou with me, chump."

"Fine, asshole. You want to call for take-out?"

"Hmm," Misha said and then smiled, "Indian maybe?"

"Oh yeah, I'll get that lamb dish I had last time, nearly took the roof of my mouth off, it was so hot. Awesome."

It was hard not to enjoy your life while eating food that spicy, and they were laughing and piling up empty beer bottles and yogurt cartons from fighting the heat. Jared had stopped seeing the empty chair Jensen wasn't sitting in every time he and Misha hung out together, but it still sometimes hit him how far away he was from where he wanted to be. Jared knew he'd gone quiet and possibly morose when he heard Misha sighing.

"I'd suggest you call your boyfriend, but lately that's not working so well," he said.

Jared had stopped trying to get him to stop calling Jensen his boyfriend—right about the time he'd admitted to himself how much he liked hearing it. "He's got to have surgery on his knee again."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, in a couple of days. They think there's been too much stress, the original repair didn't work or they fucked up, or who the hell knows. I only get what Jensen tells me, and it's too damn easy to lie on the phone." Jared spun his beer bottle in his hand. He wasn't sure that Jensen was lying about how much of a setback this was, but he couldn't tell for sure, and he was frustrated with the whole situation.

"And you think you should be there?"

"Should? Want to, but should, I don't know what the fuck I should do. We, look, we barely talk on the phone. He's either half off his head on pain meds, or I'm half asleep or in a hurry, and we don't talk about the show, because hey, at least I get to be in it, even if I don't want to, and—fuck, you know the deal."

"I, well, you know what I think, I think you need to talk to him, but—"

"Yeah, stoned and on the phone, not quite going to cut it. Look, sorry, man, I'm being a bitch, but I'm going to go to bed."

Jared shuffled through his nighttime routine, dogs out, teeth brushed, dogs in, stare at the phone, give up on keeping the dogs off his bed, glare at the script for the next day, turn out the light and go to sleep. He's not sure when he last even felt like jacking off. Not counting the really inappropriate times when he's talking to Jensen on the phone.

*****

The crew was nearly as wound up as their actors, maybe not struggling quite so hard with the motivation, but still, not a loose and happy gang. Somebody put the word out that the gang's all going out to hit the bar after work on Friday night. Somebody with the title of Producer let Jared and Misha know that they should show their appreciation by showing their faces.

"How much am I going to hate this?" Misha asked Jared.

"Depends on how willing you are to get too drunk to care," Jared said with a little more snap than he'd meant.

"Jared, honey, don't tell me it's over," Misha said and batted his eyes absurdly. "After all these months of the Platonic ideal relationship, don't tell me it's over."

"Dude," Jared said and banged his head softly against the wall of his trailer. "Don't make puns I can't understand when I'm in this state."

"If you didn't get it, how do you know—"

"Misha."

"Shutting up."

"I have to go out with all these people and do my very best straight-boy act."

"When you really want to go home and curl up on your bed and watch emo movies and talk to your boyfriend on the phone."

"God, you're an asshole," Jared said.

"Yeah, but you're smiling aren't you?"

"Misha, I will drink you under the table, and then leave you there dressed in a pink tutu and a push-up bra."

"Try it, buddy. You might be built than a brick shithouse, as Cecil in lighting informs me, but I have way more practice at artistic dissipation than you."

"Well, hell, back in Texassss, we make our shithouses out of wood. They use brick here?"

"I don't know, maybe because it's cold?"

"It's not the cold, it's the damp. You know that."

The chosen venue for the evening was a loud and obnoxious bar that looked like the sort of place students would have hung out in ten years ago. It looked like some of them had never left. If Jared wanted to make good on his threat to Misha, he figured he wouldn't have to look far for a source of push-up lingerie. The music was pounding classic rock, and Dean Winchester would love it. Jared is not Dean Winchester. Jared was, however, so done with holding on and coping and waiting and wanting things he can't have. Jared was letting himself go, and he was going to do it riding out on a bottle of tequila.

He let the PAs get them a table; they always ran the show on these nights. He slid in and dragged Misha after him. He smiled at the guy on his left, who wasn't the guy who should be there, and he had a conference with first the waitress, then the manager, and then he just let the Am Ex talk for him. The waitress and a couple of her kin brought over a pile of chips and salsa, four buckets of Corona and a second bucket with a bottle of Sauza Blanco and a dozen limes nestled in the ice. Jared slammed a couple of shots like a guy who didn't sleep through Hollywood parties, and he snagged four Coronas for him and Misha to start on. The night got blurry fast.

Jared knew he'd been talked onto the dance floor, usually a dangerous proposition for anyone in flailing range, he just couldn't remember by whom. He could remember getting tired of the taste of lime and switching to bourbon, he just wasn't sure when he'd done it. He could remember Misha opting for the local poison and switching to rye and ginger ale, and maybe that's where he'd got the brilliant idea for the bourbon from. He had a clear recollection of calling the driver for Misha. He knows that he called Jensen and hung up on the second ring. He remembers a blonde on the dance floor, and the tall dark-haired guy who watched him from the bar with a particular kind of pointed attention. He remembers the brunette who led him out to the alley, and the stink of garbage and cigarette smoke shocking him to something like sobriety.

He swayed and crashed back into the brick wall. Brick shithouse, he thought, and started to laugh. Brick shithole, more like. He'd always liked to duck outside with Jensen to get some air while Jensen smoked. He'd stood outside of more than one dive, in more than one country, and watched with a particular kind of attention and wanted things he'd never had the nerve to try to get.

"Hey baby," the brunette said, and Jared didn't know her name or any one thing about her other than that she was looking at him like he was already a story she could tell her friends, and that she wasn't nearly as drunk as he was. She had on a short denim jacket that she was shrugging off to reveal bare shoulders, and Jared supposed she meant to drop it on the dirty ground.

"Tell people it's huge and you fucking choked on it, tell 'em I was too drunk to get it up, tell 'em anything you want," he said, and pushed off the wall and stumbled down the alley, heading for the light of the road, ignoring the words she tossed after him. He found a cab before he had the wit to call the driver, and he made it home in one piece, public heterosexual reputation unstained, his opinion of himself at an all time low, and a craving for cigarettes that he didn't need a psychologist to explain.

Jared and Misha practiced a mutual avoidance of the hung-over roommate on Saturday, and when they finally felt like eating, Jared drove out to pick up some Chinese food from a place he'd discovered his first year in Vancouver. They didn't deliver, as they'd explained on the phone the first time, and they served _food_ that was Chinese, not Chinese food. Jared had used a little charm and got them to agree to pack up an order for take out that first time, and he'd been a regular ever since. He had to wait a little, and he browsed the clutter of pamphlets and local advertising flyers that always kept company with the dish of candy beside the cash register. There was a neat stack of pamphlets for a church that wasn't anywhere near their neighbourhood. Jared picked one up out of curiosity and forgot it was in his hand until he had to stuff it in with the food to free up a hand to dig for his wallet.

Misha found the pamphlet stuck to his siu mai and looked at it curiously. "You going to church? Going to repent your drunken ways?"

"Nah, it was in the restaurant is all. Caught my eye, because it's way downtown. I haven't been to church in years."

Misha flipped the pamphlet open, scanned it, tossed it over. "You should read that," he said, and Jared tossed it on to the couch and didn't think about it until he was cleaning up later and found it again.

Jared got up early on Sunday morning because he had to take the dogs for a run. He needed to keep to a routine—they needed a routine. It was unpleasantly damp and cold out, but he was still steaming by the time he'd gone the first half mile. He gave the dogs a rub-down before he had his own shower, and he picked up the pamphlet again while he was getting dressed. He'd put on jeans and a sweater and socks without holes in the toe. He stuffed his wallet and keys in his pockets and quit pretending he wasn't going to go.

He had to settle for the Tim Horton's drive-through for coffee, and he was still a little late, so he ducked into the church and found a seat in the back. On one level, it wasn't too different from the church he'd gone to back in Texas as a kid. There were hymns and an ordinary looking minister who read from the same old bible and talked sort of casually about the things he'd just read, rather than really delivering a sermon. On another level, well, he wasn't in Kansas, that's for sure. There were obvious couples of all sorts in the congregation, a lot of middle aged people, grey and flush with prosperity, and a few kids, street kids maybe, gaunt and scarred. They were paired up too, some of the kids. There was two women holding hands in the next row up, and Jared noticed their wedding bands, and he started looking around for more. He noticed the children too, and he was beginning to wonder if he was the only single person there.

The collection came around, and he dug out a crisp pink fifty, the twin to the one he'd mailed to Jensen. He got a few curious glances, but nothing that couldn't be explained by being the very tall, new guy. He hung around at the end of the service to shake hands with the minister, even though he'd been tempted to just duck back out. He still had to look his mother in the eye though, so he introduced himself and didn't make any commitments when the minister asked him if he was coming back. He looked up and one of the rougher looking kids was eyeing him up. Jared just grinned and shook his head; he'd either been recognized or was being cruised or both.

He sat in his car for a while thinking about the sermon and the atmosphere of the place and found himself laughing that the gayest place he'd ever been in Vancouver was church. He had his phone in hand and the call punched through before he thought to count back to Texas time.

"So you are up," he said when Jensen answered.

"Enjoying the peace, everyone's at church."

"Funny you should mention that."

"Yeah?" Jensen said, and Jared heard noises that implied Jensen hadn't really gotten out of bed yet.

"I thought I'd give it a try."

"Seriously?"

"Mmm, yeah"

"And how was that?" Jensen sounded cautious, and Jared thought for a second that he'd try to pretend he'd been born again or something, see if he could sell it.

"Gayest place I've ever been," he said instead.

"Seriously?"

"I've only had one coffee, I'm too tired to joke around. Their pamphlet says they have a special call to minister to gay people."

"So how was it, must have been strange?"

"Sort of, sort of familiar too," Jared said.

"Huh, you—something up? I mean, other than the hours and shit?"

"No—yeah, maybe. I don't know—look, I wanted to know how you're doing after the surgery and stuff, I didn't mean to go on about my shit."

"Your shit has the advantage of not being all about my stupid fucking knee, though. I like talking about your shit," Jensen said.

"Yeah, so you don't have to tell me what's going on, I get it. How is your stupid fucking knee?"

"I think it might be better actually. This surgery went really well, and I'm either getting used to pain, or it's healing faster. Lends credence to the first surgery was fucked up theory."

"Well, that's good, right?" Jared said, but what he felt was disappointed, or maybe just a little petulant, that he'd had to drag even good news out of Jensen.

"Yeah, sure. I'm still almost immobile for another week, and then the forecast is for a long and arduous stretch of crutches only with twice-weekly therapy. Once they're convinced the long bones are fully healed, they'll bump up the therapy."

"Yeah, well, that's a long road, isn't it?"

"Yup."

Jared tried to line up Jensen's timetable with his own, but he was too tired to make sense of it. He wasn't certain how many more weeks he had to go. "Okay, Jensen, I just—I don't want to—not on the phone—but you know, man, right? You know that the second this show is in the can, I'm on a plane, right?"

Jensen sucked in a breath and didn't say anything for a long silent stretch of seconds.

"I—Jared, don't say things now that—"

"No, Jensen, just—no. I mean it now, and I'll mean it in a few weeks. Seriously."

"Um, sure—okay, just—"

"Look, I'm going to get about a gallon more coffee and then try to get my shit together for next week, okay? Send me your projected windows of lucidity, and I'll call you." Jared started the car up and looked around, surprised to see the parking lot empty. He hadn't noticed all the other cars pulling out around him.

"I'm off the hard stuff for good now, they tell me I have to start suffering for real, but yeah, I'll put something together."

"Okay, well then, I'm going to hang up."

When Jared got home there was an email from Jensen with a grainy set of photos of Misha attempting to dance at the club on Friday night. Jared sent him back an admonishment to stop going to _those places_ on the internet, along with a request that he put his powers for evil to use in a search for video evidence.

*****

They had three episodes left to film, the two hour finale, and then the episode that would air before it. It was going in front of the cameras last because it was one big location shoot. The two-part finale was an emotional climax to five years of a show that Jared had stumbled into mostly as a way to get out of the rut he was in on Gilmore Girls. He hadn't expected the pilot to get picked up, hadn't ever expected any renewal, although he'd been grateful for them. He hadn't expected to start out the series as one person only to finish it as some other guy altogether. He'd never expected Jensen, and he'd never really known what the hell to do about Jensen once he had him. He wasn't going to curse himself for his foolishness in waiting almost too long to do anything at all. He was going to get through the last four weeks of filming, and he was going to get on a plane the second he was cut loose.

He was falling apart filming the finale. The producers had decided half-way through the season, when it was confirmed that they weren't getting Jensen back on screen in any capacity, that they would make Sam discovering the details of his brother's death the focus of the last two hours of the show. He felt like the shooting schedule was too rushed—they had to finish on time to move up into the mountains for the location shoot—and they were working late into the night getting the technical details right, but not putting the time into the most emotional scenes. He was frustrated, Misha was frustrated, and the production staff were too wrapped up in the last minute logistics of their two weeks at Whistler, and the coup of being allowed to film in Olympic venues, to really notice.

It all came to a head on the last day of studio filming. Misha had been trying to break the mood by clowning around all day, and it hadn't been working. Tempers were getting frayed, and more than a few of the crew were counting down the hours until they were done for good.

Jared heard the shouting from the dinner line, Misha's voice, Cecil, and someone else, all shouting over each other. He took off at a run, and he found Misha toe to toe with the lighting director, both of them nearly incoherent with rage, and no sign of Cecil. Jared wrapped his arms around Misha and dragged him, virtually carried him, to his trailer. The lighting director followed for a couple of yards, still yelling, but he finally found his temper again, and he backed off.

Once inside Misha's trailer, Jared put on some music, turned it up almost as loud as it would go, and they sat pressed together on the sofa, not speaking for a while, just feeling each other's presence.

Jared could feel Misha relaxing, the tense curl of his body unwinding, and he picked up the remote, turned the music down and said something absurd enough that Jared laughed. Jared answered in kind, and by the time the knock sounded on the door they were both tear-streaked and a different brand of crazy than they'd been an hour before.

The shooting in the mountains was a lighter schedule, there were a lot of guest stars lined up, and everybody had a chance to lighten up and relax. Jared was starting to remember that his job was supposed to be fun sometimes.

Two days in, they actually finished filming with the sun still up. Jared tilted his head back and let the sun wash him clean. It was almost too warm against his skin, but the air was still crisp and dry and he hadn't been able to feel his ears for a few hours. Something wet plopped against his neck and he turned to find Misha, grinning and hefting a second snowball with obvious intent. They were going to be on You Tube before the day was over, but Jared wasn't going down without a fight.

Jensen called him the next afternoon to report that his mother was horrified that Jared hadn't been wearing gloves, but Jensen himself was just happy the ass of his pants had only gotten extremely wet, and not ripped wide open. "You should see the blow ups of your wet crotch though, dude. Your dick is an internet star."

"My cold, shriveled dick, you mean. My balls still haven't reappeared."

"TMI, man, seriously."

"You once described a bowel movement in loving detail, Jensen. You went on at length. You wouldn't stop even when I begged. I thought I was going to have to have the memory hypnotically removed from my mind or something."

"That was different, you try going that long without going, and see how you feel."

"I know how it felt, you told me all about it—exhaustively," Jared said.

"But it was educational, where else are you going to hear about that side-effect of the good drugs? Those guys on the street corners aren't going to tell you, you know."

"You're deranged."

"I'm bored out of my fucking skull, is what I am," Jensen said.

"Yeah, I know. Ten days. Filming wraps, I am required to show my face at the wrap party here, and then I have to do two days in L.A."

"Okay."

"Okay? That's your comment, okay? Do you want me to come or not, because, dude, if you don't, you better fucking say—"

"Jared, Jared, Jared—shit, calm down. Yes, I want. I want a whole hell of a lot."

"Okay, then," Jared said quietly. He had been planning on not losing his cool, and he'd actually thought he had a good grip on things.

"Yeah, okay," Jensen said just as quietly.

*****

The wrap party, per the insistence of the network, was at a private club with a bottomless bar and security on the door. It was a nice enough place, and the food was good, but Jared was already gone in spirit. He had been for quite a while. He'd spent the morning sitting outside, phone pressed to his ear, while he lined up everyone he needed to close up the house, get the dogs in a spa, and get himself on a plane.

He set his warm, half-full bottle of Canadian down on a high table in a corner that provided the illusion of some privacy and pulled out his phone. He sent a text with his new ETA; he didn't think calling Jensen from the party was a good idea. Jensen had never said anything to indicate that it bothered him that much—the fact that he couldn't finish the show he'd started out the star of—but he'd been avoiding the topic lately. Jared had changed his plans, had told his publicist and his agent to handle what needed handling and to meet him at LAX if they had to, because he was skipping spending anytime in L.A. beyond changing planes in the airport. They'd been unimpressed, but Jared had finally found a use for his accumulated indifference and ignored them.

Jensen sent back his answer while Jared was still faking it hard with the slop of beer left in the bottle, surrounded by cast and crew for the last time. _Wish it was now_. Jared felt like his grin was going to rip his face in half. His blood was pooling in places it shouldn't be, at least not for another day. He needed to do something, take all this stuff he was feeling and put it somewhere.

He saw Misha over by the bar, holding court with his pals from the crew, the ones who actually got some of his jokes. Jared strode over to him, watched the crowd part for him, and he let his hand land on the back of Misha's neck. He'd reached out a hundred times and hauled Jensen around like that—the safe way of laying claim. He leaned down close and said, "Your last chance, baby. Dance with me?"

Misha laughed, loud and happy and tipped Jared a knowing look. He'd seen Jared on the phone all morning, he knew he was cutting out early. "Let's do it, we'll be internet stars."

"Aren't we already? Besides, you don't think anyone here would film that?" Jared said, all mocking sarcasm. He knew who it was on the crew that fed rumours to the big wide world, and who would occasionally slip a photo into the public domain, if the background wouldn't give them away.

"God, I hope so," Misha said and grabbed Jared's hand to lead him out onto the dance floor.

"You really suck at this," Misha said a few moments later.

"Hey, man, give me a break here. I haven't danced with a guy in almost ten years."

"That's kind of sad, actually," Misha said and hauled Jared into an awkward slow dance that didn't bear any rhythmic relationship to the music, but was bizarrely comforting anyway.

"You going soon?" Misha asked when the song ended and something actually slow enough to dance to started up.

Jared checked his watch. "Soon."

"You really are my platonic ideal, you know?" Jared just raised his brows. "But if I don't see you for about two months, that would be perfect."

Jared laughed and swung the man into a dramatic turn around the dance floor, and only then noticed the laughter and applause and the sheer number of phones and cameras raised to film them as they did as they pleased.

Misha left him at the shadowed edge of the dance floor with a wink and a grin and went off, he said, to try to get Jim Beaver to give it a go. Jared slid to the back of the crowd, and saw his driver at the door talking to the hostess. Laughter and loud music and the spill of coloured light followed him out the door and into the car.

*****

Jared checked into the same airport hotel he'd stayed in at Christmas, and he eschewed the GPS for a map right at the start. After a frustrating experience with Dallas suburban traffic, he pulled up in Jensen's parents' nearly empty driveway. It was afternoon, sunny and deliciously warm, and the calm that had let Jared sleep on the plane had deserted him entirely. Jared tossed his head back, rolled some of the tension out of his shoulders, and strode up to the door.

Jensen's mother let him in, told him Jensen was in his lair with a little roll of her eyes, and she pointed him to the living room. Jensen was still using crutches to get around, Jared knew. The deal was supposed to be no weight on the right leg at all except during supervised physio. Jared suspected that Jensen was struggling with the therapy, he didn't talk about it much, and what he had said on the subject was flippant enough to be cover for any kind of painful truth.

The picture Jared had been building up of Jensen, frailer than he'd been at Christmas, off the pain pills that had been disguising how bad he was hurting, unable to look after himself, that picture was belied by the man in the leather armchair, casually doing arm curls with a very large weight while a movie blared on the television in front of him. Jensen was bursting out of his tee shirt, arms bigger than they'd ever been before, thighs straining against his work-out shorts. He had a sheen of healthy sweat on his skin, and his hair was grown out shaggy and turning blond from the sun. He was a fucking gym-bunny wet-dream was what he was, and the phrase endorphin junkie skated across Jared's mind, but if anybody needed any help standing, it was Jared.

He must have made some noise, because Jensen looked up and caught him _looking_. Jensen grinned like a damn shark and dropped the barbell, snatched up a cane and hobble-hopped over to where Jared was backed up against the closed door.

"'Bout time you fucking showed up," Jensen said when he was close enough that his breath tickled Jared's chin.

"Yeah," Jared said, "you look good," and he tried one of the encouraging smiles he'd been practicing on the drive over, and Jensen laughed low and dirty and tossed the cane to one side.

"So do you," he said, "good enough to eat." Jensen leaned into him, grabbing his hands and slamming them into the wood of the door on either side of his hips. Jensen leaned a little harder, pushing with his bent knee until Jared had to open his legs.

Jared was pinned to the wall like a butterfly on a board, and he was hard as a rock, and his heart was pounding, and he thought maybe he should turn and run—if he could ever get out of the iron grip Jensen had on him. He tried to rise to Jensen's opening play. "So have a taste," he said, noting the slight falter in his voice, and trying to bluff his way past it. "I'm not trying to stop you."

Jensen laughed again, and said, "Not yet, not here. If we start something it's going to end with my entire family hearing me fuck you on the living room floor."

"Fuck."

"Mmmm, would love too." Jensen belied his earlier words and leaned in to nose at Jared's neck.

"I have a hotel room," Jared said, and Jensen flashed his teeth again and laughed.

Jensen left Jared standing in the foyer, trying to get his head around this new world order, while Jensen hopped up the stairs like some kind of demented, and really, really built, flamingo. He came down a little more slowly, bag in hand, shorts exchanged for a pair of jeans, and in seconds they were in Jared's rental and on the road, with nothing from Jensen other than a shout back into the house that he was going out and not to expect him for dinner.

They drove to the hotel in near silence. Jensen balled up his jacket to shove under his thigh and hissed out a sound of relief when he had it elevated, but beyond that, no one said a word until they passed a strip mall on the road leading to the airport hotels. "Drugstore," Jensen said softly. "You're going to need lots of lube."

"Jesus," Jared said, and swung across two lanes of traffic and left a little rubber behind pulling into the parking lot.

"Christ, you drive like a fucking asshole," Jensen said proudly.

Jared made his drugstore purchases, manfully not adding any camouflage items beyond a jumbo bag of Gummi worms, and they were back on the road and then pulling into the hotel lot before he got his stupid blush under control.

They shared a silent ride in the elevator with a few other guests, and then Jared was fishing out his key-card, opening the door, and waving Jensen inside. He'd gotten a suite, on the theory that having a room between the bedroom and the door was a good idea for privacy. Jensen tossed his bag onto the small sofa and walked into the bedroom without a backward glance.

Jared took a moment to try to get himself together. None of this was going how he expected it to. He felt like Jensen had yanked the rug out from under him, and he didn't know what to do to get things back under control.

"Jared," Jensen yelled from the bedroom, peremptory, demanding, certain—all the things Jared wasn't.

Jared let his body lead him, and it wanted to go in there after Jensen, so in he went.

"You get lost?" Jensen said. He was standing beside the bed, his shoes were tossed under the chair, the drugstore bag was upended on the nightstand, and he had a red Gummi worm dangling obscenely from his lips. He flashed a grin, and Jared couldn't think of an answer. "You having second thoughts?"

"No," Jared said, too loud and forceful. "No thoughts at all. I think you broke me."

Jensen grinned a little more, with a little more predator showing in the flash of teeth. The candy looked like blood against his mouth until he sucked it in through pursed lips and swallowed it.

"Fuck," Jared said and took a step forward.

Jensen frowned up at him when he got closer and held up his free hand; he still had his cane in his other hand. "I need you to do what I tell you, Jared."

Jared huffed out a breath, thought about what that might entail. "Yeah," he said, figuring Jensen was worried about his knee and Jared's occasional inability to control his limbs. Jensen flashed that killer smile again, dark and certain, and Jared thought about it some more. "Yeah," he said, answering a different question this time. He could do this, he could let Jensen run the show. It wasn't his usual way, not even with men, but he trusted Jensen. "I trust you," he said, thinking that might be a good thing to say out loud.

"Good," Jensen said. "Take off your clothes and get on the bed."

Jared groaned, wanting to duck his head, but not wanting to break eye contact. Jensen was looking at him like he was laying down a challenge, and Jared was not interested in failing to meet it. He toed his shoes off, stripped out of his shirts as fast as possible, letting them drop to the floor. He stepped on the toes of his socks and yanked his feet out, one after the other and looked up to see Jensen watching him still, lips curving.

"That is the sexiest stripper move ever, man."

Jared grinned wide, and let a nervous laugh burble out. Now they were back on some familiar ground, which was an odd thing to be thinking as he slid his jeans off his hips. He hooked his underwear off along with his pants; he didn't think he could really sell coy after the bit with the socks.

Jensen nodded his head a little and a sunny smile took over his face. "Nice," he said, like he was looking at a hot car or something.

Jared scowled at him. "I'm more than just my dick you know."

Jensen grinned harder. "Oh, I know that. We're going to see just what you're made of, boy. On the bed." Jensen sounded a little less like a drill sergeant and a little more like a starving man who'd found a banquet.

Jared scrambled onto the bed and Jensen carefully set the cane against the nightstand. He kept his right leg bent up off the floor, shin resting against the bed. "Come over here," he said and his voice had dropped to a husky rasp, and Jared's dick sprang to obey first which got a laugh out of both of them.

He moved over so he was kneeling in front of Jensen, they were almost of a height that way, and Jensen set his hand heavily onto Jared's shoulder while he pulled off his own socks. He wobbled a little and Jared had to curb the urge to reach out and grab hold, until Jensen grabbed him by the wrists and pulled his hands forward to rest on his waist. Jared burrowed his fingers under the fabric of Jensen's tee shirt seeking skin.

"Always have such hot hands," Jensen said. "Just hold steady there." He peeled the tee shirt off, and then wiggled out of his jeans while Jared held him steady and let his eyes look their fill. It had always been hard to keep his gaze cooled down enough for it to pass as friendly admiration. He was very glad to be able to give up that particular acting exercise.

Jensen finished tossing his clothes aside, and turned his attention to Jared. He placed his palms flat against Jared's chest and stood there, eyes hooded, lips slightly curved, no doubt feeling the jackhammer of Jared's heart. He slowly started to move his palms flat against Jared's skin, raising trails of fire, up and around his shoulders and down his arms. One hand travelled back up to his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, while the other slid around to his waist. Jensen tugged lightly and Jared leaned in, eyes closing, trusting Jensen to fit their mouths together.

Jensen's tongue was hot against his lips, and then forceful inside his mouth, and the grip in his hair tightened painfully hard. He hated having his hair pulled, could usually count on women to not do it, but feeling Jensen's fingers tight against his scalp holding fast was only getting him more worked up. He opened his mouth wider, letting Jensen in, all the way in, and his hips stuttered forward, even as he tried to stay still. Jensen laughed into his mouth, pulled him tight with the hand around his waist and ground their hips together.

They stayed pressed together, swaying slightly, Jensen tormenting him with not enough friction to do more than keep him wound up. Jared had to pull his mouth away, slipping sideways between the hand buried in his hair and the mouth that was devouring him. He hadn't moved his hands, they were still tightly gripped around the tops of Jensen's hips, but now he slid his thumbs down, drawing circles against taut skin. He just stayed there, head turned, drawing in air and trying to focus on something other than the bite of fingers in his flesh and the hard press of Jensen's body against his.

"Want to fuck you," Jensen said, breath ruffling his hair. Jensen nosed the hair away from Jared's ear, letting their cheeks rasp against each other, he flicked out his tongue and traced the outer edge of Jared's ear. "Turn over, I need something to hold on to, and your skinny little hips are going to have to do."

"Not skinny," Jared said, squeezing with his fingers for emphasis before carefully letting go.

"They make me want to feed you, fatten you up," Jensen said.

Jared turned over onto his hands and knees, paying too much attention to where his feet were to have time to be embarrassed about the pose.

Jensen moved him slightly, pressed his palm against his hip to shift him. "Been thinking about this," he said quietly, "thinking about you, all the things I've wanted to do to you, all the places I've wanted to touch you." He kept talking like that, ghosting his left hand over Jared's skin, gripping tight around Jared's hip, finally dropping his left knee to the bed and draping himself across Jared's back while he worked his fingers deep inside, slick and hot and finally starting to fill the aching emptiness that had been there for months.

"Now," Jared said, "now, want to feel it."

"You will, I promise you'll feel it," Jensen said, voice scraped raw and barely audible.

He pushed back up standing, kept one hand wrapped tight around Jared, and Jared's thoughts snagged on the image of the bruises he'll have there, and how he wants them to never fade, but Jensen was pushing inside, not gently, but firmly, straight on in, and Jared had to force his breath out, had to remind his body how to open up, had to remember how to give himself over to this. Jensen was still talking, low raspy words that didn't make sense anymore, even when Jared tried to pick out the words, all he got was the rumble of sound drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. He closed his eyes and made himself just feel the sensations.

Jensen started moving slowly, deeper, and then back with a roll of hips that had Jared's nerves jangling. He had to lock his elbows to keep from face-planting in the bed. Jensen kept that up, just barely rolling in and out of him, until suddenly the grip on his hips was both hands, biting hard into his flesh and Jensen was slamming home, back and in again, and Jared, feet hanging over the edge, had to use his arms and his weight to keep from flying across the bed. He was moaning with each thrust, and trying to catch the rhythm to push back, and when he did, they slammed into each other, balls slapping painfully, and Jared shouted, "Harder," and Jensen answered with a growled sound of assent.

Jensen kept to a brutal pace, hard, but not fast, all power. Jared was boiling hot, trying to keep a grip on the bed with just his fingers and yet still Jensen's hands against his skin burned where they clutched tight. He was throwing himself back into each thrust, relishing the slam of their bodies together, growling out nonsense words, and ignoring his balls, aching now with the need to release, and he had never come just from being fucked before, but the relentless drag, over and over again, across his prostate pushed him beyond what he thought he could take, until he felt his orgasm grab hold of him, and he let it take him. He could barely breathe through it, and he wanted to swipe his sweaty hair aside, rub the stinging moisture from his eyes, but his arms wouldn't hold him up.

"Falling," he said, or grunted, and he did, his arms collapsing under him and Jensen tipped forward with him, his hands slipping loose, and Jared opened his eyes to see Jensen's fist dent the bed beside him. Jensen made a whining noise like he was in pain, and slammed into Jared one more time.

Jared could see the shake of Jensen's arm, and he eased himself flat, pulling away from Jensen, the flare of pain when Jensen slipped out of him too fast barely registering against the endorphin high. Jared wriggled around, ass-planted in his own wet spot, which made him laugh, and he got his arms up, his hands under Jensen's armpits, and they rose up together enough for Jensen to topple over sideways.

"Had that all planned," Jensen said, "all except the dismount."

Jared laughed a little crazily, and rolled away from the sticky parts of the sheet and onto his stomach.

Jensen shifted closer, and settled his right leg atop Jared's thighs. "Damn, you're warm," he said and ran his hand down Jared's flank and then back up.

"Do that forever," Jared mumbled into his arms.

It was the phone that woke him. He couldn't move, and it took him time to realize that Jensen was still half on top of him, until the cold rush of air told him that he'd moved. Jared was not willing to admit that he'd been fucked into unconsciousness. He was tired, exhausted, that's what he'd been telling himself for months now. By the last few episodes, wardrobe had been taking in his clothes, and he hadn't seen the gym in weeks. He considered Jensen, as he crawled back up the bed with his phone and settled half on top of Jared again, bulging with muscle, vibrating with energy—Jared wasn't in that league anymore.

"Hi, Mom," Jensen said brightly and completely falsely into the phone, and Jared had to hold in a laugh.

"I told you, Jared kidnapped me, and no we won't be there for dinner."

"I'm fine, seriously—not an invalid, just slightly impaired."

"No, Jared is not ... No, Jared's got a suite, I'll crash here. ... No, Mom, Christ, he's not going to get me into any trouble. This is Jared, remember? The guy you always hold up as an example of maturity and fiscal responsibility?"

Jared snickered into the pillow. Jensen traded a few more irritated words with his mother, and then clicked the phone closed.

"She thinks I'm going to lead you astray?" Jared asked.

"Yeah, what she fails to realize is that I've been fully astray since I was fifteen."

Jared spent a few luscious moments imagining a fifteen-year-old Jensen. "She getting on your nerves?"

"Yeah, I mean, she's been great, they've been great, and I couldn't have coped on my own at first, but she's trying to make me her kid again, when she isn't trying to hook me up with a nice nurse, that is. I think I'll buy her a gold-plated Cadillac on my next birthday and have it delivered."

"On _your_ birthday?"

"Seems appropriate. I just want to be far, far away at the time." He settled down again, one hand absently tracing patterns on Jared's shoulder. "You really are hot enough to heat an entire country."

"A small country."

"A small Eastern European country. I could sell you to one and be set for life."

"They'd make you their king," Jared said.

"It'd be great for you, too. They'd all be able to spell your name right the first time, and possibly even pronounce it correctly."

"Yeah, I'm not sure I can pronounce it correctly."

"That's 'cause you're a hick, dude," Jensen said, laying on the California.

"Only problem with your brilliant plan is that you'd be living in a small Eastern European country."

"Anywhere but here," Jensen said.

He sounded like he meant it too, and Jared couldn't actually imagine moving from the bed for the foreseeable future, far less planing to actually go somewhere other than Dallas. He'd gotten in the habit of taking his days in 12 hour slices, chunks of time he had to endure one by one to get to Jensen. He hadn't given a lot of thought to what he was going to do once he got Jensen. He certainly hadn't expected to be overpowered, carried away, fucked out and left drifting.

"My long-term goal is to sleep for a seriously long time, have a shower and possibly order a steak as big as my head," Jared said.

"Gotta think big."

"Mm-hmm."

"I was serious. About getting out of Dodge, or, well, Dallas."

"You want to take off somewhere? Can you? I mean, with the doctors and shit?"

"Well, a short flight, although car's easier if I can stop and stretch out my leg every so often. Can't drive yet—which is driving me nuts, but medical records are portable."

"We could go to San Antonio."

"Yeah, and have your mother afraid I'll lead you astray?"

"I don't think she's got too many illusions left about me, but maybe somewhere with no relatives would be nice." Now that he was thinking about it, someplace where he could make as much noise as he wanted to, maybe see if he could get Jensen to let him drive more than just the car, take some time to figure out how they fit together now. "Maybe someplace without any close neighbours, too," he said.

"I can't just go run off to Fiji or anything. I need a good Physio close by—a real evil one. The guy I found here doesn't take any crap, and I need that."

"So, evil Physio, no relatives, no close neighbours..."

"I wouldn't say no to a beach nearby."

"No." Jared had spent long enough squished into the mattress. He gave a little warning, and then flopped over onto his back. He could actually see Jensen now too.

"Hi," Jensen said and grinned a little smugly at him.

"I think I might need that steak sooner rather than later."

"Gotta keep your strength up, keep in training shape." Jensen leered dramatically, leaving Jared no doubts about what he was supposed to be training for.

"Yeah, I think I'm giving that up. Can't keep up with you anyway." Jared reached out and tapped one of Jensen's biceps. "Think I'll just sit around and eat doughnuts and candy all day."

"And large cuts of beef."

"Evil Physios, no relatives, no close neighbours, doughnut shops, oh, forgot the beach, and room for a big-ass barbecue outside."

"Sounds like Vancouver," Jensen said. "Know anyone who has a place there?"

"Well," Jared said.

Jensen poked him when he didn't continue.

"You're going to laugh."

"Nah."

"Will so. Okay, so, I met this guy in a bar ..."

"Jared," Jensen said and tucked his head down against Jared's neck.

"See, you're laughing already."

"Not," Jensen said, but the whole bed was shaking, and it wasn't the kind of hotel to have Magic Fingers.

"It was legit. The guy's an actor and he's made movies before, and he said I would be perfect for his next film if I wanted to stay in town for the summer."

"And what's legit guy's name?"

"Dave. His name's Dave."

Jensen wasn't even trying to hide his laughter now. "Dave? A guy named Dave, in a bar, offers you a part? Seriously, Jared, you need a keeper."

"Yeah," Jared said, and grinned. "Yeah, you want the job? Keep me from going astray?"

"Absolutely," Jensen said. "I'll keep you on the straight and narrow."

As it turned out, Jared needed the shower first and then the steak.

*****

 

dGeek.com

April 19, 2010

You heard it here first, folks. The next David Hewlett cinematic masterpiece is going in front of the cameras in Vancouver this summer, and the man in front of the camera will not be my own sweet self, but he is someone you might have heard of. Some fellow named Jared Padalecki? Sorry to break the news that it won't be me this time, but I hear this guy has a few fans of his own.

I'm getting a new assistant director this time out too. Stay tuned for details on who that is, you might recognize his name too, just don't tell him that AD is code for indentured servant, okay?


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